Are you the future?
He was just 21, a tall, gangly high jumper.
Much accustomed to failing; by his team oft declined.
His behaviour was laughed at: “such a style ignoramus!”.
Yet, in one magical hour he left champions behind.
Yes, you’re not in the running for Olympic’s great honours.
You might not have been born to witness ‘Mexico City’.
But missing the analogy between Dick’s ‘Fosbury Flop’
And your business – Ah! There’s such a very great pity!
Perhaps you’ve been feted: awards and renown, so
You’ve come to accept, what you’re doing is right. (Right?)
But out there, just out of the line of your vision,
A community’s arising, putting traditions to flight.
See, you’ve run with the logic, and the thinking sequential
That long underpinned how our industry’s behaved.
The striving to capture those clients, those assets,
Which fuelled our behaviour, those objectives we’ve craved.
Your meetings, your website, your way of presenting:
They’ve taken you years – and the rest to perfect.
Sales techniques and your systems, the plans you create, they
Are hardly the things you’d now think to eject!
But… watch out for the movement that’s building around you!
Some new kids on the block’s that you’ll soon need to face.
Bringing ways of engaging much deeper with clients.
Designing cultures that make work a more meaningful place.
They’ve carefully examined what’s driven our profession:
The performance of ‘folios; taxes, costs and our fees.
The skilled application of those instruments financial.
For decades we’ve all been obsessed about these.
These folk, they’re not aiming to outpace each other.
They’ve long soared above such poor juvenile thinking.
They’ve long gone beyond an acquisition obsession.
Their obsession today with their clients is unblinking.
Nineteen Sixty-Eight saw one man rise to Legend.
In one moment of history his sport’s thinking he changed.
Will you fervently cling to how they taught you to do things?
Or will you now reshape how the future’s arranged?
Or will you now reshape how the future’s arranged?
